Maggie Cox - Brazilian Boss, Virgin Housekeeper

‘No. May I ask who is calling?’

It must be his valet, she realised, and taking a deep breath she said clearly, ‘Marianne Lockwood. Is he available to speak?’

After a pause the man replied, ‘Wait a moment, please. I will see.’

There were several times after the man went to locate his employer that Marianne almost put the phone down. What was she doing? she asked herself. She didn’t know the first thing about being a housekeeper, and neither did she know what kind of an employer Eduardo De Souza would turn out to be. No doubt he would be overly serious and exacting, finding constant fault should she fail to measure up, examining her with that intense stare of his and making her rue the day she’d made the impulsive decision to go and work for him.

Yet beneath the cacophony of doubt and apprehension that raged inside her, a stronger more positive instinct was urging Marianne to go for it and give it a try.

‘Marianne?’

Her prospective employer’s voice—impatient and a little out of breath, as if he’d been interrupted in the middle of something and resented it—sounded in her ear.

‘Hello, there. It’s Marianne—the busker from town,’ she explained, a light tremor in her voice. ‘I—I hope you don’t mind me ringing, but you said…’

‘What is it that you need?’

Marianne glanced up to the heavens for courage. ‘A job…and a home,’ she replied, then made herself breathe deeply and mentally count to ten, so that she didn’t succumb to her fears and change her mind. ‘Are you still looking for a housekeeper?’

Sweat broke out on Eduardo’s brow. The visiting physiotherapist might have been a torturer straight out of the Spanish Inquisition, he thought grimly as the man manipulated his scar-criss-crossed leg into yet another excruciatingly painful position to test its flexibility. He swore… loudly . The therapist looked startled and carefully moved his patient’s leg back down onto the treatment couch with a murmured apology. Staring up at the ornately plastered Victorian ceiling in the library as he lay there, Eduardo sensed his racing heart slowly return to a more normal rhythm.

‘Are we finished?’ he asked, gravel-voiced.

The sandy-haired physio gave him a respectful and sympathetic smile. ‘I agree you’ve probably had enough for now, Mr De Souza. My advice is to take it easy for the rest of the day. Try and get some proper rest tonight, and don’t overdo things.’

‘Do they teach you at medical school to come out with these clichéd platitudes?’ Eduardo remarked irritably, swinging his legs over the side of the table and ignoring the other man’s immediate move to help him.

Unoffended, the man smiled again. ‘Sometimes rest really is the best course of action when dealing with any kind of physical trauma,’ he explained. ‘The body needs to access its own powers of healing, and rest gives it the opportunity to do that. I realise it may have been a little uncomfortable for you today, but the fact is your leg is definitely recovering from that last operation. Another month or two and you should notice a significant improvement when walking. I can practically guarantee it.’

‘Give me your hand,’ Eduardo muttered, and accepted help to stand—though it psychologically pained him to accept anyone’s help these days, when he had previously been so fit and able.

Hearing the heavy oak front door open downstairs, then shut again with a sonorous clunk, he remembered that he’d instructed Ricardo to take the four-by-four and go and collect Marianne. Ironic that he had been reflecting on his resistance to accepting help when he had just effectively hired a girl he had only recently met to come and live in his house and act as his housekeeper!

What had made her change her mind about accepting the post? he speculated. Perhaps it wasn’t so difficult to deduce. Common sense had simply prevailed, and the plummeting temperatures had forced her to make a more sensible decision about her living and working arrangements after all. At least now he would not have her wellbeing on his conscience, as he imagined her standing at the roadside singing and ending up in hospital with hypothermia!

‘Sounds like you’ve got company,’ the therapist said cheerfully. ‘Why don’t you let me tidy up here, then I’ll be on my way?’

‘Ricardo…Take Miss Lockwood’s coat and hang it up, if you would, and when you’re done perhaps she would like a mug of hot chocolate to warm her up? We will be in the sitting room.’

Watching Ricardo help their visitor out of her too-large tweed overcoat and then leave, Eduardo skimmed his gaze over the medley of colourful clothing the girl wore underneath, and the curtain of long rippling hair over which she’d jammed the quite outrageously bright cerise woollen hat. He frowned.

‘It might be a good idea to remove your hat too,’ he suggested, the urge to smile suddenly too overwhelming to resist.

‘Oh. I forgot.’ Grabbing it off her head, Marianne stuffed it into the large bag made up of multi-coloured velvet squares that she’d temporarily left on the smooth marble floor in front of her.

For a few moments static electricity turned her light brown hair into a wild and silken tangle, and Eduardo could not help but stare at the arresting picture she made. A cinematic image of Mary Poppins the quintessential eccentric and pretty English nanny appeared in his mind. She sang too, he remembered, this time without amusement. Being bereft of the child he might have had, he was in no need of a nanny but a housekeeper. Someone who might help make his day-to-day living in self-imposed exile a little more bearable and smooth-running.

‘Follow me,’ he instructed, moving down a corridor that led away from the generously proportioned hall, with its solid brass chandelier, and bypassing several closed doors before finally reaching one that was slightly ajar. Painfully and bitterly aware of his limp, he leaned a little too heavily on his walking cane and turned into the comfortably furnished sitting room. The only noise was the crackle and hiss of the blazing fire and the sedative ticking of the clock on the marble mantel. He stood aside to let Marianne precede him.

‘Oh, how beautiful!’

Her gaze was not on the room itself, he saw, but on the incredible view that the tall curved windows with their parted drapes displayed. Eduardo sensed an arrow of pride shoot through him as he stared through the unadorned glass at the silhouette of majestic firs against the navy blue skyline. Stars were dotted about like splashed pinpricks of luminous paint, and a dazzling crescent moon hung suspended as though it were a bright magical toy controlled by a master puppeteer. He heard her softly appreciative gasp of pleasure.

‘I told you that you would not be disappointed with the views, did I not? And it is nothing compared to what you will see in the daytime’

‘I’m almost speechless at the sight of it!’ Swinging her glance back in his direction, Marianne smiled at him with uncensored delight.

Again Eduardo had the disturbing sensation of his skin being too tight and hot to contain the avalanche of sensation that poured through him…a wave of sensual longing that was as powerful and unpredictable as El Niño…and prompted entirely by that bewitching smile. For a moment he could do nothing but stare. Automatically his mind took a snapshot of the captivating glowing features before him, and an old excitement that he had not experienced for ages pulsed strongly through his veins.

‘We could be in another realm,’ she enthused, greengold eyes shining. ‘However did you find such a place?’

‘My mother grew up in this area. Whenever she brought me here as a child I loved it. So when I was looking for a house I knew immediately where I wanted it to be situated. I visited several before I was shown this place. As soon as I saw it I knew it was the right one.’